


kill the lights and kiss my eyes

by vipereyed



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, post 4x05, set somewhere in the uhhh near future, slightly canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 07:20:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18006365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vipereyed/pseuds/vipereyed
Summary: He’s had fifty years with Eliot, and now he’ll have fifty—or maybe seventy five, or a hundred—more. However long doesn’t matter—even a lifetime between them, of just Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh, could never be enough.In which Quentin deals with lust, loss, and love, in no particular order.





	kill the lights and kiss my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> y'all mind if i uh...write this instead of contributing to my other works? hi this is my emotional support pairing. title is taken from 'to be alone' by hozier. comments and kudos appreciated always <3

It begins with a threesome, of all things.

 _A threesome_. Quentin doesn’t know when, exactly, he’s transformed from ‘pathetically lonely individual pining after his best friend’ to ‘seemingly likable guy who can get more than one person to befriend him at a time’ but it’s not entirely unwelcomed; not unwelcomed at all, in fact, as the Quentin from just a few weeks ago would never even consider being where he is now – drunk at a party, linked arm-in-arm with Eliot and Margo. With people who care about him. With _friends_ , at a weird school in the middle of fucking nowhere, upstate New York, studying magic.

It’s a bit much for him to process, at times.

He and Eliot and Margo stumble over to the bed in a tangle of limbs, the trio of them creating the image of a six legged, amorphous monster. Margo and Eliot dissolve into giggles immediately, Margo curling her head against El’s chest, and Quentin blinks, joins in belatedly after realizing that he’s probably meant to be laughing at whatever was said too. Eliot doesn’t look convinced and raises a dark eyebrow questioningly. Shrugging, Quentin makes himself comfortable on the bed, moving closer to Eliot’s side and resting his head on his shoulder.

“Sometimes it’s just—a lot,” he mumbles and oh god, did he just say that out loud? This is why he’s never been one for drinking, and while his little slip of the tongue isn’t _quite_ as bad as the time he cried on Jules’ shoulder after a drunken declaration of love, it’s up there. His face heats at both the memory and of speaking unbidden, and Quentin rubs a hand down his face, muffling the groan that escapes him. Margo and Eliot are looking at him curiously; Quentin can see smudges of what he imagines are mascara or eyeliner under her eyes, the result of tears of laughter. Sober Margo would never allow herself to be seen in such a state, and the thought brings a smile to his face.

“Well?” she prompts, wrapping an arm around Eliot’s shoulder to steady herself as she moves to a sitting position.

Quentin takes a sip from his drink, grimacing at the resulting burn in his throat. “I just never expected this, any of this shit—the parties, having friends, studying fucking _magic_ ,” he breathes out a shaky laugh, runs a hand through unruly hair. “But I’m—I’m glad I’m here.”

“Please don’t go all maudlin and drunk sobbing on us, Q.” Margo pretends to retch, her large, dark eyes rolling backwards in a way that Quentin uses every last ounce of what remains of his sobriety to try and _not_ find sexual or hot. Snorting, Eliot reaches a hand over and swats her affectionately.

“Okay, ice queen, enough.” He slings a long arm around Quentin that he relaxes into instantly, heat coursing through his body at such a simple gesture. The last time he can remember feeling so—attached, so comfortable, so _nervous_ was as a teenager, when Julia would brush hands with him occasionally on accident. The fact that this is happening with _Eliot_ is surely something his sober mind will rove over in the coming days.

It’s never even been like that with Alice, not really.

“We’re happy you’re here too, Quentin. I mean—who else could impress us with such nerdy prowess, and not to mention the whole ‘tragic, brooding, hot kicked puppy’ thing you’ve got going on,” Eliot drawls, tucking a stray strand of hair back from Quentin’s face and behind his ear. Quentin tries, he really does, to not let his face flame at the other man’s words, or his touch, but he supposes he’s a little bit unsuccessful.

He laughs quietly, his eyebrows rising in equal curiosity and amusement. “Hot kicked puppy? Really? No—I don’t wanna know, actually, forget it. But—yeah. I’ve never been the, uh, best with friendships but I just. You were the first I met here, on the first day of my new life. You’re— _important_ to me.”

Quentin doesn’t realize he’s been staring at Eliot the whole time until Margo emits another sound of fake retching behind them, this time with an added, “ugh, you’re giving me diabetes,” thrown in for good measure. He pays her no mind, however, he _can’t_ , not when Eliot is looking at him like that; all dark hair and wide, dark eyes, his face flushed rosy from the alcohol or—something else. Something that Quentin thinks has always remained unsaid and unspoken between the two of them, something that made El’s joke about seducing him ring a little _too_ true, something that enthralls Quentin as much as it terrifies him.

Eliot looks like he belongs in one of the Byronic poems Quentin recalls reading during undergrad, temptation and desire personified, and he’s tempted to quote one of them if it wouldn’t have Eliot rolling his eyes at the sheer cheesiness of it; although if he did that Margo might vomit for real.

So, emboldened by the alcohol and a fuckton he hasn’t felt since—well, ever, he settles for the next best thing.

Kissing Eliot, even while drunk, is an experience. Passionate and hot, Eliot’s lips are so pliant as they open up to give Quentin better access, and soon they’re licking hotly into one another’s mouths. It’s slow and sensual and over way too quickly.

“Wow, Q, where were you hiding _that_?” Margo’s voice is breathless as she sprawls over El’s legs, squinting up at Quentin as though seeing him for the first time. Eliot laughs through freshly-kissed swollen lips and cards a hand through her silky, dark tresses.

“I told you he was one to watch out for.”

Margo ignores him, her attention still focused on Quentin, who is fully enraptured by Margo. She’s beautiful, Quentin’s always known that—Margo is beautiful and intelligent and fierce, with her designer outfits that show off mile long legs and quick wit and a strong, unyielding devotion to those lucky enough to call themselves her _friends_.

She doesn’t even squeak in surprise when Quentin reaches out and pulls her to him, mashing their lips together. Margo melts against him immediately and takes control of the kiss, just as he expected she would, but he doesn’t care; not when her soft, heavy breasts are pressed against his chest, not when all three of them are only separated by thin layers of clothing.

Threesomes. He’s read about them, of course, in a myriad of books – not _Fillory,_ of course, and certainly not any books left in places where his mom could easily find them – but active engaging in one is different than reading about it. Quentin has never been particularly outgoing, but for the first time, he feels uninhibited, free, _normal_ ; experiencing life the way any twentysomething might and not through the grips of depression and anxiety.

Later, after the deed is over and he lay awake next to Margo and Eliot’s sleeping forms, he’ll realize that Alice didn’t cross his mind, not even once. He’ll wish that he could say he felt consumed by guilt after he kissed both of his best friends, or that he knew it was wrong and just didn’t care; anything to avoid the uncomfortable conversation of telling his girlfriend that he cheated with not one, but two people. How does one even go about that? _Hey Al, you know Margo and Eliot, right? My two friends who you barely tolerate? Yeah, we fucked_. He bites his lip to quell the burst of hysterical laughter that threatens to spill forth.

In a way, though, Quentin supposes it all makes sense. His life had been grey for the longest time until he met Eliot and Margo, two bright splashes of color in an unsaturated world.

*

Magic existing does not serve as an end all, be all to life’s problems. Life, as Quentin realizes, will always have the upper hand on him, ready to throw the rug out from under him at any moment.

 _Life._ He and Eliot had—they’d experienced a life together, with children and magic and _love_. Love that Quentin could feel was reciprocated, was not felt merely out of pity or originating from lust; it was all _real_ , stemming from emotions between the two of them that now, with the gift of hindsight, Quentin could see they were foolish for dancing around for so long.

Not that it matters now, of course. Not when Eliot had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want him.

 _Not when we have a choice_ , he’d said, and the words replay in Quentin’s head every night before sleep claims him. He’s foolish, he knows, for expecting someone like Eliot to ever _dream_ of being interested in Quentin; he wanted _that_ Quentin, not the one who exists in this world. He can’t blame El, really, because no one ever wants Quentin. _Quentin_ doesn’t even want himself. He’s steps from spiraling, he knows, but he can’t help it. It had felt so real, so definite, and now he’s thrust back into the reality of things where he’s insignificant and no one’s choice, first or otherwise, for anything.

“How do you move on from fifty years of memories?” he asks Julia one day over coffee, and it feels like Old Times between them, back before the discovery of magic and when their greatest worries were over Columbia. Before Quentin got a taste of love and lost it what felt like milliseconds after.

Julia peers at him over the rim of her cup, sympathy in her eyes. “Q,” she sighs, placing a hand over his. Quentin clutches at it like a lifeline.

“ _Fifty years,_ Jules. It’s—it’s half a century. A fucking lifetime, almost.”

“Have you tried talking to him? He cares about you, I know that.”

“It doesn’t matter, Jules. I fucked it up and I have to live with that now. We—we were the only two there, except for Arielle when she came, so of course Eliot wouldn’t choose me. Not when he had a choice,” he laughs bitterly, scrubbing a rough hand over his face. “That’s what he said when I told him about—everything. Not when we have a choice.”

“I don’t think it’s that he wouldn’t choose you, Q,” Julia murmurs, catching her lip between her teeth the way she’s always done when trying to solve a problem, a gesture that Quentin’s always found adorable. Something like guilt flashes in her eyes and she sighs. “Maybe he’s right, in a way? Like he wants you both to be able to make the choice for yourself and not because of…” she trails off, brows furrowing as she shrugs.

Quentin sighs heavily, feeling exhausted suddenly. He wants nothing but to stay in bed for days on end,  blinds drawn, covers over his head so that he doesn’t have to deal with this or think about Eliot or any of the millions of intimate moments they shared together. How do you get over someone who completed you in every possible way for a lifetime? He can’t even look at Eliot, not when he remembers the sensitive zones of his neck or the way he likes his eggs or the nights they’ve spent together. It’s too much, and yet not enough.

“It was never a question of choice for me,” he says quietly, so quiet that if it isn’t for the way Julia is looking at him he would be sure that she didn’t hear it. “I—part of me has always wanted him, I think, and it just. It just took so fucking long to stop the little games that I didn’t even know we were playing to realize it, you know? He’s just always been there, through everything, since the beginning of—of all this. He’s—he’s _it_ for me.”

He isn’t aware he’s crying until he hears Julia rush out of her chair and over to him, embracing him in a hug while the soft pads of her thumbs brush tears away from his face. He buries himself into her neck and tries to get ahold of himself. Not even the psych ward made him cry this much, and that’s saying something.

“I want it back,” his voice is muffled against the fabric of her shirt and he feels her arms tighten protectively around him. “All of it, I just—I want it back, even if he doesn’t want me. I was happy there, Jules, like actually happy. It wasn’t even fucking real but I want it.”

Julia presses a kiss to his temple, her lips warm and slightly chapped, but soft. “It was real, Q.”

He doesn’t know if he can believe her, or whether he can emotionally bear holding onto false hope, so he chooses not to.

*

Eliot’s rejection, it turns out, is nowhere near as horrible as the idea of losing Eliot forever to that—that _monster_.

Quentin is dangerously close to spiraling towards a mental breakdown; his life is once again black and white, devoid of color, the Eliot-shaped hole in his universe taunting him daily. Especially when the monster wearing his best friend’s skin is accompanying him nearly every waking moment.

Not for the first time, he considers how _easy_ it would be to just give everything up. To have his memory wiped and go back to his mundane, academia driven life, where majority of his problems consisted of loneliness and not traveling between worlds and dealing with the possession of your best friend slash lover slash ex life partner. Quentin vaguely recalls Alice telling him, lifetimes ago now, about that girl she visited with Margo while trying to find Charlie. Emily, her name was, and she’d given up all of magic after seeing Charlie become a Niffin.

He thinks he can understand that choice now, after experiencing Brakebills and a plethora of worlds in between. Going full Muggle doesn’t seem so terrible.

Eliot had once said magic is closer to tragedy than power, and Quentin can appreciate his point, now. He couldn’t before – he’d been too wrapped up in the newness of the world, of witnessing his boyhood fantasies appear true before him – but that was, well, before. His life is divided into sections of Before and After: Before and After Brakebills. Before and After the Mosaic. Before and After—Eliot.

After Eliot is by far the worst one, though, and his best friend isn’t even truly dead or gone. He’s for all intents and purposes a dead man walking, the Monster’s dummy as the entity pulls strings and walks, even talks, like Eliot despite not actually being him. How do you mourn when the dead thing is right beside you?

How do you grieve something that happened, brief and dreamy, and was over far too quickly? That seems to be the foundation of their whole—relationship, platonic and otherwise.

And then—

“Peaches and plums,” the Monster is saying except it’s not the Monster, its Eliot this time, and Quentin wants to whoop with joy.

A sliver of color breaks through his grey world. For the first time in a long time, he allows hope to bloom in his chest.

*

Someway, somehow—through not so much magic as Quentin believes was sheer willpower—the Monster abandons Eliot for a new form Julia’s constructed, and Eliot is back.

Eliot is _back_. Alive, and well, and _here_.

For the first time in a long while Quentin feels alive again, like he can finally move beyond living on autopilot the way he was for all these months. It’s a bit overwhelming though, having been faced with the possibility of losing El forever and now suddenly having him back, seeing him fucking _everywhere_ , authentically and truly _Eliot_ is too much at times. He’d been in fight or flight mode for so long, and the adjustment to idle living is difficult. Truthfully, the two of them are still dancing around one another—which is stupid, Quentin realizes, when at one point they’ve seen another naked various times over the course of fifty years. Bravery, however, has never been Quentin Coldwater’s strong suit; and so each glance between them is loaded with a million thoughts lurking below the surface, their eyes carrying conversations of things unsaid between them.

Of course, this is when Quentin _can_ stand to look Eliot in the eye, and not quickly avert his gaze like a blushing schoolgirl.

He’s fairly sure Eliot thought about them while he was trapped inside his own body and mind, but it’s a traumatic experience nonetheless, and Quentin feels it would be unfair to spring such a conversation on him now. His own preferred method of talking about it is rather unorthodox – he’d wanted nothing more than to kiss Eliot when he awoke, right in Margo’s arms, but his anxiety listed a thousand ways that could go wrong and depression had laughed right in his face. So he’d decided the talk could wait, especially with Eliot in such a—fragile state.

Eliot has a specific way of coping, which Quentin is all too aware of.

It’s worse than it was post-Mike, when Eliot would drink his sorrows away and stumble about in a drunken stupor. Quentin hadn’t even thought _anything_ could surpass Mike on the scale of ‘Traumas Eliot Waugh Has Endured’, but being possessed by a literal monster is up there. It’s been a week of nonstop drinking, and while it has its perks – mainly not being able to remember anything and drowning out feelings – on the eighth day, Quentin (and his liver as well as his head) have had enough.

“Come to join me?” Eliot lifts his never-ending flask in cheers to Quentin as he enters. There are bottles everywhere, some empty and some full; wine and beer and whiskey and tequila. Apparently the idea of regenerative alcohol is not enough for Eliot, and judging by the sheer amount of bottles alone he’s clearly had an early start to the day. Quentin squints at an empty bag on the table, which he’s seen at enough parties to know was previously filled with powder. Margo is slumped next to him, hazy eyes focused on Quentin. He can tell she’s down for the count already.

“No,” he manages to say, ignoring Eliot’s subsequent pout and Margo’s muttered “boring”.

“Oh come on, Q,” Eliot pleads, outstretching a shaky hand to pass his flask over to Quentin. Some of the amber liquid sloshes from it, spilling onto the carpet. Quentin takes the apparatus hesitantly out of fear of more spills of infinite liquor. “It’s not every day you get to celebrate my proverbial rise from the dead.”

And fuck, does that hurt to hear. Joking about trauma is valid, of course, but Quentin can’t stand to hear it – not from Eliot, and certainly not so flippantly. He’d faced seeing Eliot die time and time again, each time losing a piece of himself in the process. “Don’t—don’t say that,” he grits out, perhaps harsher than intended, and against his better judgment takes a heavy swig from the flask. He collapses beside Margo on the couch and in turn she moves closer to Eliot, curling against him. She takes the flask wordlessly from his grip and drinks generously from it.

“Why not? It’s true,” Eliot replies lightly, but Quentin can see there’s something blank in his gaze. A certain death behind his eyes, an exhaustion that Quentin is familiar with after years of depression. Eliot fidgets on the couch as his eyes dart over numerous bottles in preparation of what to drink next. His slender fingers close around the neck of a tequila bottle and Quentin stares, transfixed at both the bob of his slender throat and Eliot’s strength of drinking tequila straight alone. Once finished, he slams the bottle down, making Margo jump.

“Seriously, guys, I think Lazarus received more fanfare than I have,” Eliot slurs, chuckling at his own joke. Quentin’s had enough.

“No, Eliot,” he’s trying to keep his tone even as he feels himself beginning to snap. “We almost— _lost_ you, for good. You don’t get to do…this. You don’t get to slowly kill yourself, not when we’re all here to help you. Just—stop, okay? You don’t have to talk about it now, but just—fucking stop with all of this, please.”

Margo disentangles herself from her position and twirls a strand of Eliot’s dark curls around her elegant finger. “You know he’s right, El,” she murmurs into his shoulder and Quentin shoots her a grateful smile that she doesn’t return.

Eliot says nothing, not even sparing a glance in Quentin’s direction as he pulls Margo up with him and stalks off towards the bedroom, Margo stumbling along behind him.

*

Eliot doesn’t talk to him for a few days and Quentin avoids him completely, but it doesn’t hurt as much as he expected it to.

Mainly because Eliot is alive, and after he’s faced rejection and the possibility of profound loss, the simple act of not communicating is refreshingly simple. Quentin can remember asking Julia for advice back in high school; what to do in the hypothetical scenario of when the girl you love doesn’t love you back, and whether one should move on and let go, or hold onto hope.  Jules had seen right through him and gave him a sad smile, squeezed his hand and told him: “sometimes the harder decision is the one you have to make.” He lets those words play over in his head now, as he thinks about the absolute mess that he and Eliot are.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to completely let Eliot go; Julia had been easy in comparison, and even _that_ was difficult for Quentin, with only about twenty years of memories between Jules and him.

A knock on the door pulls him out of his thoughts and he rasps a quick ‘come in’, not bothering to look up from his current concentration at a random spot on the ceiling.

“Hey.” Eliot is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame of the door. He looks like absolute _shit_ , complexion pale and waxy and dark purple crescents lining his puffy under eyes like he’s been drinking or crying or maybe both. It probably has been both.

Still, he’s the most beautiful thing Quentin’s ever seen.

“Hi,” he greets, forcing himself into a sitting position on his bed. He realizes he’s been staring at Eliot for a beat too long and looks away, focusing somewhere behind him. “What’s up?”

The other man steps inside and closes the door silently behind him, dark eyes flitting over to Quentin dubiously. “I think you know why I’m here, Q.” He sighs, brushes off invisible lint from his pants. “We need to talk.”

Quentin swallows a dry lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he concedes, his eyes finding Eliot’s again. “We do.”  He watches as the other man’s chest swells as he inhales shakily and he realizes for the first time that Eliot is _nervous_. The observation sparks obscene hope and tremendous anxiety within him at once.

“May I?” Eliot gestures an elegant hand to the bed and Quentin nods, looking away as Eliot takes a seat at the edge of it. “So. I know things have been a little _fucked_ from when I was, you know, dealing with a Regan Macneil level of possession. Seriously, Q, I’m surprised you and Bambi didn’t get a priest up here,” the two of them share a tentative, small smile that fades away all too quickly. “I still don’t really know everything that went on. I know—I know it was bad, and so I need you to tell me about it someday, but not. Not now. I don’t think I can—anyway. I had a lot of time to think while I was trapped inside my own mind, mostly because, you know, there isn’t much else to do.” Wet laughter escapes Eliot as he exhales, and Quentin braves a quizzical look at him.

“Right, yeah, of course,” he says slowly, hoping against hope that this flutter in his chest isn’t for nothing. He reaches a hand out to rest on the other man’s shoulder, keeping his face artfully blank as Eliot leans into the touch. “El. What are you trying to say?”

“I’m _saying_ ,” Eliot’s voice is shaky as he stares at Quentin with glassy orbs, lips trembling into the semblance of a hopeful smile, “that fifty years is definitely more than enough proof of concept.”

And Quentin has never had a very strong grip on his emotions, so he melts at once, a noise suspiciously like a sob leaving his mouth as his hands fist in Eliot’s (no doubt pressed and ironed) shirt, pulling him closer so their lips can finally, finally touch. Kissing Eliot is all that he knows it to be, fifty years’ worth of kisses dancing behind his eyelids, the act dissipating a weight on Quentin’s shoulders that he hadn’t even known was there.

There is tragedy in magic, he knows that now; but there’s power and love and lust and happiness and euphoria and _Eliot_ there, too, real and solid and _alive_ against him, within him.

“Peaches and plums,” Eliot murmurs against Quentin’s lips, and Quentin can feel the other man’s mouth curving into a smile.

“Mhm,” Quentin agrees, pressing a kiss to the smooth, tear-dampened skin of Eliot’s cheek. “I love you.”

Eliot laughs, warm and wet and _bright_ , glassy eyes alight with mischief and warm with— _love_. “You and many others,” he quips, twirling a lock of Quentin’s hair around his elegant finger, “I love you too, Q. But don’t think I won’t hesitate to kill you if you tell _anyone_ about this sappy made-for-Lifetime moment we’re having.”

Quentin rolls his eyes, his hands raising in surrender. “Deal,” he says, and then he and Eliot are kissing again. As far as kisses go, it’s clumsy since both of their lips are dry, and they’re overexcited so it’s a fumbling clash of teeth more than lips.

But it’s okay, Quentin thinks, his eyes falling closed in bliss. He’s had fifty years with Eliot, and now he’ll have fifty—or maybe seventy five, or a hundred—more. However long doesn’t matter—even a lifetime between them, of just Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh, could never be enough time.

 


End file.
